Category: Solar System

Our solar system

The yearning for Uranus: A far-out world with a tale to tell

NeRD

For sure, it was a far-reaching recommendation: The planet Uranus and its moons should be NASA’s highest-priority new flagship mission for startup in the decade 2023-2032. The proposed mission, known as Uranus Orbiter and Probe (UOP), would conduct a multiyear orbital tour to yield knowledge of ice giants in general and the Uranus system in particular, doing so through flybys and the delivery of an atmospheric probe. The payoff: “transformative, breakthrough science across a broad range of topics.” UOP was advocated within the pages of “Origins, Worlds, and Life —…

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Lilo & Stitch live-action remake: Release date, plot, & everything we know

NeRD

Prepare yourself, as a Lilo & Stitch live-action remake is crash-landing on Earth in 2025. “‘ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten”… especially when it comes to live-action remakes of Disney classics, and next in line is 2002’s animated sci-fi romp Lilo & Stitch. Everyone’s favorite cheeky, koala-like alien is coming back to the big screen, with a few changes. What we do know is that Disney will be sticking to the original movie outline of “give us Steven Spielberg’s E.T. but make it Hawaii,” and…

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This Week In Space podcast: Episode 139 —Look to the Skies

NeRD

Look to the Skies – Leonard David, Jared Isaacman, UFOs & UAPs – YouTube Watch On On Episode 139 of This Week In Space, Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik talk with seasoned space reporter and journalist Leonard David to cover a broad swath, from the choice for the next NASA Administrator to new delays for the Artemis lunar program to UFOs/UAPs! President-Designate Donald Trump’s pick for NASA, billionaire and private astronaut Jared Isaacman, came as a surprise to space watchers, and his name was not just missing from the shortlist…

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Geminid meteor shower peaks Dec. 13 alongside a bright moon. Here’s how to see it

NeRD

This week brings us what usually is considered to be the most satisfying of all the annual meteor displays, even surpassing the famous Perseids of August: December’s Geminid meteor shower. But as was the case with last month’s Leonid Meteors, prospective sky watchers should be aware that once again you will be facing a major obstacle in your attempt to observe this year’s Geminid performance, namely, the moon. Unfortunately, as luck would have it, 2024 will see the moon turn full on Dec. 15 and as such will seriously hamper,…

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Dwarf planet Ceres could be rich in organics, defunct spacecraft data reveals

NeRD

Using data from NASA’s now-defunct Dawn spacecraft, scientists have discovered that the dwarf planet Ceres, the second wettest body in the solar system after Earth, could have an interior reserve rich in organic materials — the building blocks of life. The results hint that Ceres may have enough internal water, organic molecules, and the energy source needed for life to exist on the dwarf planet. Of course, that alone doesn’t suggest the dwarf planet is inhabited. Dawn was a mission that explored Ceres, the largest object in the main asteroid…

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Over 10,000 exploding stars catalogued by groundbreaking Zwicky Transient Facility

NeRD

The Zwicky Transient Facility has reached an incredible milestone: It has classified over 10,000 cosmic explosions that mark the deaths of massive stars and the feeding frenzies of vampire stellar remnants. These events, called supernovas, are undoubtedly some of the most fearsome and powerful events in the universe. Since 2012, humanity has discovered almost 16,000 supernovas. The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), which began operations in 2017 using the 48-inch telescope at Palomar Observatory, is responsible for almost two-thirds of these detections. That makes it the largest and arguably most successful…

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‘Star Trek: Lower Decks’ season 5 episode 8 flips the script and visits the ‘Upper Decks’

NeRD

The latest “Lower Decks” episode, “Upper Decks”, reveals what the command crew gets up to when Mariner, Boimler, Tendi, Rutherford, and T’Lyn aren’t hogging all that main character energy. So, as the lead quintet gets busy “mutilating gourds” for Halloween — everyone but T’Lyn would describe it as carving pumpkins — “Upper Decks” shows that the bridge crew doesn’t just “fade into the background” when the junior officers are elsewhere. It turns out that alien invasions, potential engineering disasters, and metaphysical crises are all in an average day’s work, in…

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How ‘Star Wars: Skeleton Crew’ uses Spielberg magic to capture the spirit of the original trilogy

NeRD

All those spaceships, droids, lightsabers, and scoundrels had a big part to play in capturing the imaginations of a generation back in 1977. Even so, there’s a much subtler moment that arguably defines the original ‘Star Wars’ movie better than any other. Young farmer Luke Skywalker, told by his uncle that he needs to stay on Tatooine for one more harvest, steps outside the homestead to stare at a gorgeous binary sunset. It’s a moment that captures the feeling that your current humdrum existence is preventing you from experiencing the…

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Trump may cancel NASA’s powerful SLS moon rocket – here’s what that would mean for Elon Musk and the future of space travel

NeRD

Since Donald Trump’s recent electoral victory, rumors and speculation have circulated that NASA’s giant moon rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), could be under threat. The rocket is one of several key elements needed for the US space agency’s Artemis programme, which aims to return humans to the moon for the first time since 1972. For the first lunar landing mission, called Artemis III, the SLS will launch four astronauts on NASA’s Orion crew capsule. Orion will then travel to the moon. Once in lunar orbit, Orion will dock with…

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Why we can’t just name a quasi-moon ‘Moony McMoonface’

NeRD

During the summer of 2022, just after the James Webb Space Telescope started sending us a steady stream of deep-space postcards, astronomer Stephen Finkelstein and his team found a mysterious red splotch in one of those data deliveries. They’d spotted one of the earliest galaxies humans have ever laid eyes on — a realm that represented a distant pocket of the universe our species once couldn’t dream of seeing. And, importantly, they found it on Finkelstein’s daughter’s birthday, a serendipity that blessed this blob with a name: Maisie’s Galaxy. But…

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